1 Ne 17:41-45

It is important to note that Nephi did not tell his brethren that they "could not hear his words." Instead he was teaching them that spiritual messages most often come through feelings.
The Lord does not use an exotic method to send his children messages. He uses a medium that is already incredibly common to them. Because humans are creatures of emotion, the Lord's use of feelings to send messages to his children maximizes the number of people who will be equipped to receive these messages.
Because the Lord speaks to us through our feelings, we must ever be on guard to distinguish between our own emotions and feelings, one the one hand, and the feelings that carry the messages from our Heavenly Father on the other. These two things work through nearly the same channels and be easily mistaken for one another. The ability to figure out which feeling is which may be related to the gift of discernment. As we are obedient and perform the Lord's work here on earth, our capacity to distinguish between these two sources of feelings will be increased.
If we notice that the Lord seems to be sending us less messages, we should check ourselves and determine whether we have become the limiting factor. It may very well be that we have become too casual in our relationship with the Lord. To remedy this situation, we need to recommit to being obedient, loving, and serving.
Negativity in our thoughts, words, and actions can diminish the number of messages that we receive from the Lord. Dwelling on the negative in life can distort our natural feelings. We can find ourselves becoming cynical about situations, critical of others, and that everyone and everything falls short of our expectations. As we do so, we become emotionally crippled. We forget to find, or become unable to notice, the elements of good in everyone and everything. Once our feelings have become so one-sided, we shut ourselves out from the positive feelings that the Lord wants to send us. Should we be surprised to find it hard to communicate with a God who is the source of all goodness if we have convinced ourselves that his children and creation are full of faults?
In this verse, Nephi teaches that the Lord sends us messages made up of words as well as of feelings. Just like spiritual feelings are designed to be similar to our own emotions, these words from heaven are adapted to our own vocabulary. This means the Lord will send words to our minds that come from our own language. The words will be recognizable, in other words, because they are words with which we are already familiar.
Even though the Lord sends us words that we already know, it is the combination of those words that will be unique to the Lord. He will form the words he sends us into phrases and thoughts that we had not anticipated. Although he may bring things to our remembrance that we already knew, we will not have been thinking of these things at the time he sparked our memory. On other occasions, the Lord will reveal something new to us that is understandable because it is composed of words that we already know.
Elder B. H. Roberts used to say that the Spirit cannot draw upon an empty well. What this means is that the Spirit is limited in what it can reveal to us if we have a very small vocabulary and little schooling. As we gain an education and increase the number of words that we know, there is the potential that the Lord can send us more detailed messages. As our language and learning expand, the Lord can reveal to us a great number of connections between and patterns within the pieces of knowledge we have already obtained. Before we receive these revelations, however, these connections and patterns will not be obvious to us. It takes the influence of the Spirit to make us see what was always before our eyes or to understand what was comprehensible but never before comprehended.
The Lord likely wanted to send the same kinds of messages to Nephi and his brethren. They were, after all, in the same situation with needing to build a ship and to sail to the promised land. However, Nephi's ability to hearken to the Lord qualified him to receive more messages than his brethren. Like Nephi and his brethren, we may find ourselves in situations, like sacrament meetings, where just about everyone has the same ability to hear the same message with their physical ears. However, despite this common experience, there will likely be vast differences in the amount and types of spiritual impressions that each person in the congregation receives. Some of this revelation may be the same for most or all of the people in attendance, such as spiritual verification that what the speaker has said is true, but the rest of the revelation may be adapted to the needs and abilities of the individuals in the audience. Just as their were similarities and differences in the revelations received by Nephi and other members of his family, there can be unifying and personalized revelations received by us and the members of our wards.
Nephi teaches here that it is possible for people to reach the point where they are "past feeling" and can no longer detect the "still small voice." We should be aware of the things in our lives that dull our spiritual sensitivities and weaken our capacity to receives spiritual impressions through our feelings. In the world people talk about individuals who have suppressed, desensitized, or lost their conscience. This is an approximation of what Nephi is talking about. The result is that these individuals no longer feel a moral obligation to treat others with respect. The corollary is that love from another person may or may not touch the hearts of these individuals. It all depends on the extent to which these individuals have become "past feeling."
The Lord does not stop trying to talk to his children once they become "past feeling." He will, if necessary, use the language of physical force ("the voice of thunder") to get our attention. This switching on the Lord's part, from one mode of communication to another, is actually a demonstration of his mercy for his children. Rather than become offended that we have stopped listening to the still small voice, the Lord patiently and lovingly finds other channels through which to obtain our attention. He is slow to give up on us, even if we are quick to stop listening to him.
People are foolish and arrogant if they think their inability to hear and feel messages from the Lord is somehow proof that God no longer speaks to his children. These individuals are the ones who have broken the lines of communication. The Lord always stands ready to communicate to his children. In fact, the blame is entirely upon these individuals, rather than the Lord, because he has already made attempts to send messages to them, just like Laman and Lemuel received an angel, but they turned a deaf ear to these feelings and tuned out the Lord's voice to them.

[edit]

1 Ne 17:41-45

From Feast upon the Word (http://feastupontheword.org). Copyright, Feast upon the Word.

Contents

Questions

Verse 41

Verse 42

Verse 43

Verse 44

Verse 45

Lexical notes

Exegesis

Verse 45

Related links

Views

Personal tools

Navigation

Search

Toolbox